"Short History of Croatian Film" by Ivo Škrabalo

Recently I wrote abut very first Croatian feature movie "Lisinski" (1943) and noted how existence of this movie was mostly unknown to wider audience who assumed our cinematography started after WW2 with Yugoslavia and "Slavica" - at least that is what was officially taught in schools. So its perhaps not accidentally that now I stumbled upon very interesting book called "Short History of Croatian Film" (Hrvatska filmska povijest ukratko) written by late Croatian movie historian, Ivo Škrabalo - he had actually written two similar books in 1984. and 1998. but this is somewhat shortened & edited version.

First time around, back in 1984. Škrabalo's book came under fire and he was considered politically incorrect for pointing at Croatia's far older cinematic history against accepted dogma that it all started after WW2 with new regime, communism and Yugoslavia. It was dangerous to openly contradict this story and to insist on national cinema heritage - in fact, anything that even suggested one nation opposite "brotherhood umbrella" was seen as reactionary. Which is clearly a nonsense because as this book explains, it just happened that Croatia actually had some cinematography (no matter how small and provincial) while other Ex Yu countries had not, so there you go.

These are facts:
First movie screening happened in 1896.
First public cinemas in Zagreb and Pula in 1906.
First Croatian short movie in 1917.
First school for "cinematic acting" opened in Zagreb in 1922.
First Croatian animated movie in 1929.
Around 42 cinema magazines up to 1941.
Producers from Hungary, Vienna and Berlin often made movies in Croatia (director F. W. Murnau, creator of "Nosferatu" was filming here!)
First Croatian feature movie "Lisinski" had premiere in 1944. and was a big hit.

All of these was swept under the carpet once communists came to power in 1945. and "our cinema" officially started than and there. I really wonder why did it took so long until somebody in 1984. finally decided to clear this up (and unwittingly end up in trouble for speaking the truth), after all I saw pre-WW2 cinema posters advertising movie hits with Charlie Chaplin and Greta Garbo with my own eyes during recent visit to Museum of Zagreb's history. Because Škrabalo also worked on academy teaching movie history, he decided to edit and shorten his previous two books into new easier-to-digest version that I keep in my hands now.

One thing missing naturally here would be overview of cinema in other Ex Yu countries (I am sure they had some cinema screenings elsewhere even back than) but Škrabalo is focused on Croatia and he insist that his job here is not to explain relative qualities, merits or lacks of those in movies he lists, he simply weaves them all chronologically to make some clear presentation how the Croatian movies developed trough time. As I read about all these movies, I couldn't help but asking myself why is there such a big difference between cinematography in two of Ex Yu biggest countries, Croatia and Serbia. After all we spoke very similar (almost identical) language, made movies at the same time, used same movie actors and had film festivals awarding them simultaneously - so why did we always end up like two distant relatives circling around each other?  Somewhere between the lines Škrabalo himself even accepts that Serbian movies were always far more successful commercially while Croatian had more prestige, but nowhere near market. Even with all those movies listed (majority of them I forgot completely) I can see that Croatian directors were mostly unable to connect with wide audience the way Serbian directors so effortlessly did. And not only Serbians, hough they were definitely masters of war spectacles - Bosnian director Hajrudin Krvavac made legendary "Valter brani Sarajevo" that was such war/action phenomenon that ended up being the most popular ever foreign movie in China! As for Croatia, the only movie everybody agrees is sweet, old fashioned music comedy "Tko pjeva zlo ne misli" (1970) that is deservedly cult classic but hardly appeals to audiences who are not born locally and don't understand this loving homage to Zagreb between two world wars. So finally, its one Croatian classic against huge Serbian cinematography. It was definitely not author's intention but I certainly started to ask myself could it be that with all their educations, schooling and academies Croatians are simply pretentious elite who insist on art while Serbians are populists who know what audience really wants? Not that I approve on low-humour comedies tailored to "everybody" and in many cases I find Serbian movies simply vulgar and not funny at all but when they are good they are great, while there is nothing great in Croatian movies - wooden acting, unconvincing scripts and gloom everywhere. Recently I saw two relatively new Croatian movies on TV and although they had some good ideas, they simply looked low-budgeted and made for TV. Even supposedly all-time great "Tko pjeva zlo ne misli" is not something to proudly present to my international friends who are already familiar with highlights of international movie masterpieces. It seems to me that Croatian directors are constantly repeating the same mistake and trying to be sophisticated and serious, where simple little stories told with warmth and humour leave far better results.